If You Like Your Food, You Can Keep Your Food

Food prices have been steadily rising under Obama. The price of a pound of potatoes has gone up by a third, the price of a gallon of milk has increased by a fifth and the price of a 5lb bag of flour has gone up by a dollar.

Bacon was at $3.60 a lb under Bush. It’s now up to $5.60 a lb under Obama. The price of a whole frozen Thanksgiving turkey was at $1.32 a lb under Bush. It’s up to $1.81 under Obama giving Americans that much less to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

The price of a tub of margarine went up from $1.50 to $2.10. But that won’t be a problem for long because thanks to Obama it may soon become hard to get margarine at any price.

Obama’s FDA is considering a ban on trans fat in foods. Like incandescent bulbs and cheap free market health insurance, margarine may become one of those things that you can no longer buy anymore.

It will also mean that many other foods will either be banned, become more expensive or taste worse.

The FDA had already mandated trans fat labeling on products. The new ban would not protect anyone; instead it would take away the right of Americans to choose what they eat. Under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the FDA was created to prevent “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors.”

Its claim that trans fat in foods make them adulterated is a deliberate misinterpretation of its powers.

The FDA’s food policing powers do not give it the right to ban unhealthy foods. If they did, the FDA could outlaw every kind of junk food. And it has begun doing that with its argument that trans fats are unsafe because they are unhealthy; building up plaque in arteries and increasing the risk of heart attacks.

Here’s a short list of foods that build up plaque in arteries and increase the risk of heart attacks.

Milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, hot dogs, salami, French fries and eggs. The FDA has given itself the authority to ban everything from a glass of milk to a carton of eggs. And that’s not an exaggeration.

Last year a new study came out whose author claimed that eating eggs was as bad for the heart as smoking cigarettes, compared the egg industry to the tobacco industry and was followed by suggestions that egg cartons should carry health warnings like tobacco cartons.

Every time you see another one of those contradictory health warning stories, imagine that they can lead to a ban on everything from wine to chocolate to eggs.

Bloomberg, who pushed through a trans fats ban in 2006, is celebrating that Obama has caught up to him. The question is which element of Bloomberg’s food fascism will Obama adopt next? Will it be his ban on salt or on large sodas?

Many of the largest junk food companies are as cheerful about the ban as Bloomberg.

The ban on trans foods will make everything from doughnuts to popcorn to cookies taste worse. That’s bad news for working moms who like their frozen pizzas, movie lovers who like their microwave popcorn and Vegans and Kosher Jews who use margarine instead of butter in their cooking.

But it is good news for big food companies which have the cash to sink into R&D for new techniques; some of which may even be patentable. Smaller manufacturers will be squeezed out as their doughnuts suddenly start tasting oily and consumers switch to the big budget brands which become the only game in town.

In the age of Obama, rent seeking is one of the most effective ways to compete. Regulatory barriers favor big companies over small ones. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which is spending a lot of money to fight genetically modified foods labeling, cheerfully welcomed the trans fat ban. The GMA wouldn’t be doing that if it weren’t profitable

GMA members welcomed Michelle Obama’s call for “healthier food” with a standing ovation at their convention; understanding the competitive advantages that added regulatory barriers would bring. The big companies have already slashed trans fats in preparation for what they no doubt knew was coming. Now they get to watch their smaller competitors desperately scramble to hold on to their customers.

The products of the smaller local manufacturers may even be healthier overall, but health has nothing to do with this. Like everything that this government does; it’s about power. The power to move money out of less politically connected pockets into more politically connected pockets.

The FDA is making an aggressive power grab into an area that most people pay very little attention to. Bloomberg started with trans fats before moving on to more familiar targets like soda and salt. If the FDA succeeds in banning a food because it clogs up arteries, it will pave the way for unlimited bans. And those bans will also serve the interests of crony capitalist food firms with ties to the Democratic Party.

All this would be bad enough in a healthy economy, but when American families are already worrying about how to put food on the table; it’s downright criminal.

Marie Antoinette at least allowed the peasants to eat cake; if they could find it. Barack Obama isn’t just starving Americans of food money with his economic policies; he is now taking food out of their mouths.

The price of a frozen pizza went up by 33% under Obama. Now due to his trans fat ban, it will increase even more and taste worse.

That may be Obama’s legacy. That he made Americans poorer and worse off, forced them to spend more and get less for their money. That he deprived Americans of every basic necessity, made it more expensive for them to drive to work, to see a doctor and to eat a meal.

And when they did sit down at a table to eat; Obama even made the food in their mouths taste worse.

During the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover campaigned on a promise of a chicken in every pot. During his own economic depression, Obama celebrated Thanksgiving by signing a bill legalizing the slaughter of horses for human consumption. According to nutrition experts, horse meat is healthier than beef.

Forget your hot dogs, doughnuts and popcorn. Start eating your horse.

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To watch this week’s episode of The Glazov Gang, which focuses on When Obama Said He’s “Sorry” and unravels the president’s peculiar apology about his ObamaCare lie, Click Here.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

Thank you migger-pigger Pharaoh Hussein and bathhouse-covering consort Moomoo for all you do…
Let’s make sure the Brown Kunt stays in power forever!

Guest

Truly a lovely post and one of the reasons I shake my head at my own party.

Guest

If it is a post from a conservative and not some kind of false flag operation designed to discredit conservatives.

Rocky Mountain

“Bad news for movie lovers” Lol and cry me a river! How about bad news for gamers, couch potatoes, and porn addicts. Talk about a reach! I don’t want the government telling me what I can and cannot eat but I do want information and partisan politics aside, the food industry is not likely to promote or develop radical changes to their products unless the market forces push them in whatever direction the market wants to go and the way markets operate best is through the dissemination of information. In this case, and I hate to say it, the FDA may serve as an information disseminator while trying to be a policeman at the same time. However, in general I don’t worry too much about my food because its still my choice as to what I eat and if government makes it hard to buy some of the garbage that is out there I’ll work with the Free Food Underground (FFU) to supply my movie loving friends with all the butter they can spread! The truly bad news for movie lovers is Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger!

monostor

What the author says is true with one extra observation added: the price increase of consumer products including food is the result of the stimulus and the following QE policies. The money the Fed is printing to keep the Keynesian economy afloat has to be recovered from somewhere. As for the FDA regulations re food and its content, the process started long time ago. The regulations were coming down in increments. Now the glass is full and every additional drop poured into it ends up in the media…

patron

5 years of low quality treasuries on people’s books, over-valued equities acting as a toll for cronies to cash in their loans, and an $80 trillion shadow banking derivatives market hides this effect greatly.

Pretty soon we’re going to pay more to lenders, and everything’s going to blow up.

Mach1Duck

Now tell me that 1% COLA increase is equatible.

CDM

The inflation numbers are cooked, just like the unemployment numbers.

Here’s the disturbing part: There are people at the Fed, who are making policy based on these bogus stats and it doesn’t even occur that they are making decisions based on bad data.

james connolly

That will be precisely Obama’s legacy, among many other horrors: That he made Americans poorer and worse off, forced them to spend more and get less for their money. That he deprived Americans of every basic necessity, made it more expensive for them to drive to work, to see a doctor and to eat a meal.

This country has never had a more inexperienced, inept, arrogant, narcissistic, extremist-left tyrant as president. He’s great at campaigning; but has not one clue about how to govern. He is truly a pathetic, hapless man. He couldn’t care less that he is dismantling all that we Americans have held dear for almost 250 years. This country cannot survive 3 more years of him.

If you voted for this monster, you asked for this. Had you read any of the many books available about this man’s tragic and shady background, you would not have fallen for a fraud.

Jakareh

Great post, but just I disagree on one thing: Obama is not that great of a campaigner. And he’s not very likable, either, nor a great public speaker. He was lucky to run against unappealing candidates (Hillary, McCain, Romney) or unopposed (his senatorial race), and to have massive media bias in his favor and all the hype about how “historic” a black president would be. Obama was in the right place at the right time and that’s all there is to this little Caligula.

james connolly

Jakareh,
Good point. With a fawning, adoring media giving him total loyalty no money could buy, and the other circumstances you mentioned, he was bound to win. I should have said he was a good enough orator to deliver volumes of mesmerizing “high-level vagueness” speeches full of lies and promises no one could keep — just enough that the uninformed fell head over heels for his fraudulent deceptions.

NAHALKIDES

Not to mention hatchet-man David Axelrod clearing the field for him. Blair Hull would have beaten Obama for the Democratic Senate nomination if his “sealed” divorce records hadn’t been leaked thanks to Axelrod. Then he still faced a formidable Republican in Jack Ryan, whose divorce records also suddenly became available. That left Republicans running Alan Keyes, and the Senate race was a walk for Obama.

Hipster types. Those idiot teens beat the sh out of their closest allies. . The looks on their faces look like there’s more going on there than the fact they were beaten. There’s a shock there, too; you can tell.

It’s bad enough that Baltimore and Detroit, et al are gone, but…. And as for Oliver Stone, Tarentino, and their violent movies….they bear a lot of blame.

For the dude who used “racist” about fivet imes and “KKK”….learn some compassion, will you? And the one who said, “Chill out.”…. I can’t believe these times….

ziggy zoggy

At first glance I thought for sure the vic was an islamopithecine but after reading the story and learning his name I figure he probably isn’t. The beard and hat…….

I didn’t need to know the attack took place on MLK Blvd to know who did it, though. Naturally the article didn’t mention the race of the attackers. I lived in Seattle for years and know first hand that Seatac is a $hithole.

Not sure why you referred this particular story, though……..?

Guest

Because, we have talked before and you mentioned that you lived in the Seattle Area.

It was not so much that I wanted to point out the distressing news story, but the blog (Vladtepes), which I think is a better aggregator of the truth than the MSM. It is not my blog BTW. I am not not that much of an artist nor am I Canadaian

ziggy zoggy

Thanks, I like the blog. You should use a screen name so people recognize you.

benabo1machal

Go ahead and tell me that the car of sardines that I just purchased for a $1.29
has the same weight as the one I bought last year for the same money
Contents have shrunk so has the next COA
While Obama pigs out on $200 a pound on Kobe beef
That faker doesn’t even have the decency to BUY AMERICAN. another reason the U.S. economy is in the tank

carpe diem 36

he is as good as Louis the xiv! let’s have a revolution !!

CDM

Anybody notice how the number of hot dogs in a pack has gone down and that the formerly standard 16oz package is getting rarer? I’ve been noticing how food manufacturers have been cutting package sizes to keep the same price points.

Last time I remember something similar was in the high inflation era in the 60’s and 70’s.

Softly Bob

Anyone here notice that the moonbats who want to ban certain foods are usually the same people who want to legalize marijuana and love abortions?
Leftist irrationality knows no bounds.

Abortion = (very) bad for unborn baby’s health. so let’s legalise it.
Inconsistency and hypocrisy occupy the few braincells that these people have.

Jakareh

Good point, but neither trans-fats nor marijuana should be banned because consuming them is a personal choice.

carpe diem 36

margarine is bad as is butter but lard is good. isn’t that funny? or is this the kind of logic only fascists possess?

vladdy1

They see “lard” as a hillbilly convenience that they’d never think of using anyway, so WTH?

A Z

I see the Massachusetts liberal is not posting any more.

Did he see the light?
Did he get arrested for the hacking he did?
Or did he simply move on?

I wonder what he thinks about inflation? Probably makes it harder to be a small indie producer of records. Less people have money for his product and what money he does make does not go as far. Given that fact I wonder what he thinks about this article.

Jakareh

Anybody reading this can be sure that leftists have a long-range plan to ban meat, dairy, eggs, and all other animal products. The motivation is two-fold: animal rights and “saving the planet”. Of course, this is still at an early stage and many of today’s leftists would be as opposed to it as conservatives. But 20 years ago “gay marriage” was still a fringe concept even among leftists. What happened, as always happens, is that a vocal minority within the left doesn’t find any opposition, so their hare-brained ideas become leftist dogma. Do they then go on to persuade the larger society? No, they find an activist judge to lie and say their latest lunacy is mandated by the Constitution. Barring a significant rightward shift (which is needed for many other reasons), so-called veganism will be mandatory in American within most of our lifetimes.

Zundfolge

“Animal Rights” aside from being a component of Critical Theory of Marxism (destroy the dominant culture) is also a means by which they can justify disarming the people. Outlaw hunting and then there’s no more “sporting purpose” for any of those guns you own.

Jakareh

Absolutely. Somebody can be for “animal rights” all they want, but from the moment they infringe on real rights—those of other people—by spray-painting a woman’s fur coat, for instance, they should be given stiff prison sentences.

BS77

.. The sheeple are getting exactly what they voted for.

Redwine123

Unfortunately, this tyrannical regime is taking the opposition with it.

Redwine123

The main architect of the monstrous, oppressive O-Tax is the fascist, Ezekiel Emanuel, who is a proponent of giving legal right of animals to sue their owners.

carpe diem 36

you must be kidding!! who else but this kind of fascist will think of something like that. i wonder who will be their attorney, also a horse? or a cow? or a chicken?

ReasonOverStupidity

The stupidity of the left never ceases to amaze me.

carpe diem 36

at the end we will be eating tree bark just like the North Koreans.

Drakken

You folks in the big cities might, but those country folk that the left always make fun of will at least eat.

vladdy1

Watch normalizing sex with minors and animals, as well as misogyny as the next things the psych assoc. approves….The green and red coalition will see to that and are working on it already.

patron

Food forgery along with high prices results from devaluing currency.

Only futility comes from external mandates. Real change can only start with the individual.

Jakareh

Once all the irrelevance is filtered out, this is what’s left of your post:

You don’t want the government to tell you what to eat, but you’re perfectly fine with the government telling you what not to eat.

Markets work best through the “dissemination of information” and the best way to disseminate information is to ban products about which information must be disseminated. What role does this leave for markets, again?

Rocky Mountain

Once all the irrelevance of your post here’s what’s left. 00000000.

Jakareh

“BTW, would you not prefer the government ban a food which could be irrefutably shown to be harmful?”

Of course I don’t want some mealy-mouthed Obama bureaucrat to decide what foods are “irrefutably harmful” and if you need to ask the question you’re the one with a “mental bowel blockage” (whatever the hell that means). Don’t you get that this sets a precedent? If liberal turds can ban Crisco and margarine today because they are “irrefutably harmful”, then a few years from now they can ban beef and eggs for the same reason. Each new ban and each new regulation they successfully impose gives them a freer hand to interfere in the lives of the American people. Let me remind you of a few bans already in place: toilets that work, DDT (which would kill bedbugs), light bulbs, Bucky Balls, lawn darts, dish detergent that cleans dishes, and those are just off the top of my head. We need fewer leftist bureaucrats and fewer of their bans, not more. Anyone who doesn’t see that is the opposite of a conservative.

onecornpone

Disclaimer

I do not write this to advocate FOR farm subsidies, I am merely offering some historic perspective to people who may not grasp that our food chain has not operated under CAPITALISTIC principles for a very long time. Shock immersion, as many “conservative” folks espouse, may not lead to an economically healthy transition.

Food prices have been steadily rising under Obama.

YOU ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!

The former multi-generational “cheap-food policy” of our government is being transformed. For many decades farmers were paid subsidies which varied based on annual profitability of real time market prices.

Deficiency payments offered ag producers a subsistence survival mechanism during low price years caused by the unpredictability of too many factors to list. Subsidies encouraged farmers to stay in the ag biz, holding on until the next crop, in hope of profitability. Though market prices were often below cost of production, consumers got their cheap food, and were able to afford many other non-essential consumer goods they desired.

This began changing back in the late ’80s, but the BIG leap was made in the 2008 farm bill, wherein subsidies were shifted away from actual farmers, to crony capitalist grain export companies, crop insurance conglomerates and Food Stamp users.

We are beginning to see the result of the transformation, as we witness increasing numbers of SNAP enrollees for FREE food for the “poor”, as food prices for the middle class rise noticeably. Does this remind you of ACA?

YOU will be forced to choose, which is more important to you. That semi-annual exotic vacation you enjoy planning for months, or ensuring your children or grandchildren have an adequate diet.

You were warned, Michelle Antoinette Obama told you Barack would force you to make some difficult choices. Like Bin’Laden, these statist overlords boldly declared their intentions upfront, but half the populace could not read the fine print without an interpreter. The LSM, the “interpreter” was AWOL…

The playing field is being leveled. The majority assumed that “leveling” would happen by somehow lifting up the poor – but NO, it is the middle class who have clawed themselves into a position of comfort who will be lowered into the melting pot, to fight for their lives.

Statism is an abomination.

Bamaguje

I’m surprised the do-gooders haven’t banned smoking.

Wolfthatknowsall

If they banned smoking, they couldn’t tax the cigarettes and the tobacco companies. This is why they want to legalize marijuana (besides the fact that the Lefties of the 1960s-70s now run the nation). It’s always about money and control …

glpage

This is another example of the leftists favoring the rich. Whatever leftists say about wanting to help the middle class is a crock of crap. Before they do anything they are going to make sure their sugar daddies have a good flow of cash.

vladdy1

The rich and the poor are fine. It’s the damned middle class, we here in our heated homes with a means of transportation and a little land around us that they want to see trapped in the inner-city high-rises.

ReasonOverStupidity

Welcome to Obama’s America: A hellish Soviet-style nightmare!

logdon

Here’s where it ends.

European Commission Regulation No. 1677/88, “Class I” and “Extra
class” cucumbers are allowed a bend of 10mm per 10cm of length. “Class
II” cucumbers can bend twice as much. Any cucumbers that are curvier may
not be bought or sold.

“This is an instance of bureaucracy out of control. All this new law
does is create a raft of civil servants being paid to move mountains of
papers round all day, while interfering with the right of people to grow
what they want, and charging fees for the use of plants that were
domesticated and bred by the public over thousands of years of
small-scale agriculture.” — Ben Gabel, Director, UK-based Real Seed
Catalogue

Maybe that’s why they feel the need to regulate them. They’re use is slightly different than we had imagined.

Chris Gait

A bad government is worse than a man-eating tiger. Confucius

Drakken

With that in mind, save wildlife, feed the tigers will all the libtarded leftist we can.

Gamal

Obama should ban oxygen. Oxygen causes aging. Oxygen gives rise to free radicals that destroy our health. That’s the reason so many people take antioxidants for their health.

Bob Bartlett

They still allow growth hormones in our meat. What do you think that is doing to our weight?

ScottB

By all means, eat your glyceryl trichrysanthemate. (A true “trans” fat, since it’s a cycle.) But what “choice” have people about unlabeled, partially hydrogenated polyunsaturated vegetable oil in fast and restaurant food? Those are poisonous, so why do you wish to foist them on people unawares?